Hillary called Ela 'personal hero’, SEWA ahead of time

Ahmedabad: Former First Lady of the US, Hillary Clinton, counted Ela Bhatt, the founder of SEWA, as “one of her personal heroes”. Clinton and Bhatt knew each other since 1995 when the former visited the SEWA headquarters in Ahmedabad. Clinton was impressed by the organization’s 1.4 lakh members and their work to empower women by offering microloans.

In 2012, Clinton, then US secretary of state, wrote in a social media post: “Back in 1995, I met a woman named Ela Bhatt in India who was already 20 years into a revolutionary experiment. In 1972, she started an organisation to give women small loans that could help them find fulfilment in their work and contribute to their family’s well-being. It was called the Self-Employed Women’s Association, or SEWA.”